Quinton “Rampage” Jackson clears the air on his recent statements about regretting starting his MMA career.

Quinton Jackson recently stirred up some noise when he revealed that his “biggest regret” was getting into mixed martial arts competition in the first place. In a recent ESPN interview, Rampage said if he had the choice, he would have opted to remain living with his family in Memphis.

The former PRIDE superstar will be facing Muhammed Lawal this Friday in a rematch at Bellator 175. During the pre-fight presser on Wednesday, Jackson clarified his previous statement, which he says was taken out of context.

“Man, half the time when you do interviews, you get negative people in the world who want to spin words and get clickbait, or just get people to listen to their interviews,” Jackson said (via MMA Fighting). “It’s hard being in the public eye when you just keep it real. The guy asked me, on the spot, what was my biggest regret about doing MMA, and I thought about my family.

“I left everything back in Memphis and I moved to California. I left everything. My family, my car, my job, everything, and I left and moved to California by myself.”

Rampage did admit he regrets leaving his younger sister behind when she was eight years old, and not seeing her grow up to be the woman that she is now. And with some experiences he had as a top fighter, Jackson says he would have preferred to have led a simpler life.

“Since I’ve been a fighter, I’ve been screwed out of millions of dollars by managers and people pretending to be friends. When I was champion, I had a lot of fake friends around me,” Jackson said. “And as soon as I lost the belt, where did they go? My family, they’re always there. They always tell me they miss me and they’re proud of me. So I just wish I would’ve stayed home in Memphis and been with my family, the people who like me.”

“I would’ve been a construction worker, just like the rest of my family, and happy. And that’s all I said. But you’ve got negative people that spin it and take it out of context, and it gets annoying sometimes when people do that. So, I just kept it real, like I always do. I keep it real. You ask me a question, I’m going to give you the honest, most real answer I can possibly give you.”